Gopher Support
KeyDB contains an implementation of the Gopher protocol, as specified in the RFC 1436.
The Gopher protocol was very popular in the late '90s. It is an alternative to the web, and the implementation both server and client side is so simple that the KeyDB server has just 100 lines of code in order to implement this support.
What do you do with Gopher nowadays? Well Gopher never really died, and lately there is a movement in order for the Gopher more hierarchical content composed of just plain text documents to be resurrected. Some want a simpler internet, others believe that the mainstream internet became too much controlled, and it's cool to create an alternative space for people that want a bit of fresh air.
How it works?#
The KeyDB Gopher support uses the inline protocol of KeyDB, and specifically two kind of inline requests that were anyway illegal: an empty request or any request that starts with "/" (there are no KeyDB commands starting with such a slash). Normal RESP2/RESP3 requests are completely out of the path of the Gopher protocol implementation and are served as usually as well.
If you open a connection to KeyDB when Gopher is enabled and send it a string like "/foo", if there is a key named "/foo" it is served via the Gopher protocol.
SECURITY WARNING#
If you plan to put KeyDB on the internet in a publicly accessible address to server Gopher pages make sure to set a password to the instance. Once a password is set:
- The Gopher server (when enabled, not by default) will kill serve content via Gopher.
- However other commands cannot be called before the client will authenticate.
So use the requirepass option to protect your instance.
To enable Gopher support use hte following configuration line.
Accessing keys that are not strings or do not exit will generate an error in Gopher protocol format.